Morning journal and courier., 1887-09-05
Story of a 'Cornado.

Stepping upon Boston Shawmut ave-
 nue horse car a few days since," says a
 writer in the Youths Companion, 'tI was
 surprised to recognize an old acquaintance
 in the conductor, who, as I supposed, was
 herding sheep in Dakota. why, Brown,
 you here!' I exclaimed; 'How's thisa Where
 are your sheepH My sheep left me- said
 he, with jerk at the fare indicator. Sold
 outn I inquired. No; got jumped.'
 sJumpedl what jumped your asked. Well,
 you see, it was about like this, replied my
 friend; and he gave me the following &C.,
 count of his western experience: Tn June
 last I had twenty-four hundred ewes, with
 their lambs. looked after them carefully
 every day to keep off the coyotes, and
 built up a good corral for them at night,
 down in the edge of the timber. One af-
 ternoon about the 20th of the month was
 sitting on some rocks watching them.
 Sheep, when they are feeding. as you know,
 generally keep tagether, and I should think
 that at this time, mine were, most Of them,
 on plot of not much more than an acre Of
 ground The sky was clear, though just
 trifle hay; but by-and-by noticed bit of cloud in the northwest that seemed to me to be behaving in & singular way. It ap- peared to move with 8 kind of spasmodic motion. I noticed, too, that it was rapidly growing lynger, and that it seemed to shift from dark to light green hue There was
 sort of sleeve or funnel shaped trunk hang ing down from it toward the ground. The view to northward from where I sat was good one, and I could see the cloud coming number of miles off. With every stroke of the trunk could see brown cloud of dust, grass, brush and timber rise in the air and go whirling up into the sky. It was tor l. o,,l v,aSo Solyo a
 deep chink or hole down between two of the rocks where I was sitting. I shut my
 big umbrella, dropped down into this chink, stretched out full length, and laid the um-
 brella over the opening in the rocks into which I placed myself. had hardly more
 than placed myself there when It grew dark as night and the whizzing, roaring noise
 became loud as thunder. I dug my nails
 into the crevices of the stone and held on and then, whishl the tornado went over me with roaring shriek, rattle, show
 CT of stones and dirt, and I felt as if the whole ground abou4 me was lifted into the air. This did not laast more than half minute. I got up out of the crevice and looked around for my bunch of sheep. l saw two of them three or four hundred yards off to the left, running as if Q panther was after them; another one, lamb, lay kicking little nearer. Those were all that l could see. I ran down to the corraIs and there found two of the sheep, one with broken ! leg. They must have been blown into 1t over the eight-foot fence, for I had turned | them all out in the morning. Ihad not gone far when found sheep up twenty-five or
 thirty feet from the ground in the top of a pine tree-lodged therel A little further on I came upon one lying with broken leg
 back on the ground, and shortly after l saw another lodged high up in the crotch ot 8 | big cottonwood. Before night l found fif- | teen, nine of them dead on the ground and six up in the tree tops-some of these latter | kicking to get free. The next day l salted down three barrels of mutton and came east | to get job and earn some more money"